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White House announces anti-botnet initiative
The White House has been drumming up momentum for tighter internet privacy laws for a while now, and today it's furthering that online safety agenda with a new initiative for combating botnets. Washington just announced a pilot program for fighting viruses, citing a whopping five million PCs infected worldwide this year. The program will use principles outlined by the Industry Botnet Group, with the main goal being to educate internet users on the dangers of cyberspace while preventing botnets from spreading by sharing data about infected computers. The White House is working with the Information Sharing and Analysis Center to develop and implement the "botnet pilot," presumably to enact those anti-virus principles.
Don't bring your computer viruses to Japan, because they're illegal now
Tired of getting swamped with spam and malware? Just pack your things and catch the next flight to Japan, where computer viruses are now considered illegal. Under the country's new legislation, anyone convicted of creating or distributing viruses could face up to three years in prison, or a maximum fine of ¥500,000 (about $6,200). It's all part of Japan's efforts to comply with the Convention on Cybercrime -- an international treaty that requires member governments to criminalize hacking, child pornography, and other terrible things. Privacy advocates, however, have already raised concerns over some stipulations that would allow investigators to seize data from PCs hooked up to allegedly criminal networks, and to retain any suspicious e-mail logs for up to 60 days. In an attempt to quell these fears, the Judicial Affairs Committee tacked a resolution on to the bill calling for police to exercise these powers only when they really, really need to.
Microsoft declares 'open season' on botnets, beats Waledac in court
When we heard that Microsoft was appealing to a higher power to shut down the Waledac botnet, we assumed that meant lighting candles at St. Francis Parish -- instead, the company went to the courts. At its prime, Waledac was estimated to have infected upwards of 90,000 machines, which in turn sent out approximately 1.5 billion pieces of spam a day (about one percent of the world's total). In February, District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a temporary restraining order taking the 276 domains that the perps used for the network's command and control structure offline, and earlier this month the act was finalized with the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia granting a motion that, according to USA Today, "[effectively] gives Microsoft permanent ownership" of the domains. Although the defendants didn't come forward, Microsoft lawyers were able to prove that they were indeed aware of the case -- it seems that not only did they launch a DDOS attack against Microsoft's law firm, they also threatened a researcher involved in the case. Of course, since the worm can also operate in peer-to-peer mode there's no telling how many infected machines are still out there, but at the very least the botnet has been crippled -- and now companies like Microsoft have proven legal recourse if they are targeted by domains (at least ones registered in the US). "It's open season on botnets," said Microsoft senior attorney Richard Boscovich Sr. "The hunting licenses have been handed out, and we're coming back for more." Image: Privacy Canada (https://privacycanada.net).
Phone-based virus transmission prank nets Pakistanis
It appears that some wireless customers in Pakistan were recently worried that they may die due to a virus transmitted via their phones. What did they do in response? For starters, the authorities were inundated with concerned Pakistani phone owners and even some Karachi-area mosques made public announcements that there was indeed a killer mobile virus on the loose. We're not talking a software operating system virus here, but a virus that magically jumps from a person to person using a phone handset (through long-distance airwaves?). Pakistani authorities dismissed the large-scale prank by stating that "They (rumors) do not make any sense in technological terms." We agree.[Via textually.org, image via How Stuff Works]
